When known, cloth types are included. Rare and Unique Items are Highlighted; Fade Touched Items are in Same Locations but rare.

If a common item comes up rarely on a map, it is not listed for that map as it would much easier to find it on a map where it is common.

About Dragons: Most of the main maps have one dragon, except Emprise du Lion, which has three, and the Fallow Mire, which has none. All dragons drop the following on every map: dragon scales, dragon webbing, dragon bone. Therefore, the tables below list which maps yield dragon teeth and the different blood types only.

Note! Some tables are completed (though minor changes may occur), others are not–labeled “Draft.” This is under construction. If you have suggestions, please make a comment.

“I don’t have time to explain why I don’t have time to explain.”
The Exo Stranger, unwittingly (or jestingly) explaining Destiny’s lack of in-game story

Destiny (2014), the wildly successful multi-player shooter video game made by Bungie, hints at having a story behind it, but so far it’s pretty much a mystery. Sure, as you go through the short-lived “story” missions in order to open all the game maps, you hear some people speak,[1] but you are forced to come to the sad conclusion that you’re being kept in the dark as to the meaning behind all the fighting you’re doing. I think it’s safe to say that most people, even professional game reviewers, were shocked and disappointed by the real absence of a story in Destiny.

Based on the Beta, which I played, I thought there’d be more of a story and perhaps it would even have more of a recognizably Christian basis. My hopes were deflated after playing the released game, however. Bungie’s own activities jaded me more to the idea of any Christian basis to Destiny, like: insulting XBOX users online and going out of their way to give Playstation users more product for the same cost, and celebrating Halloween but ignoring Christmas (EA’s Garden Warfare, in contrast, was a virtual Advent Calendar that freely gave players fun stuff every day before Christmas during December).[2] My point is, I was biased toward an anti-Christian story before researching Destiny’s lore more, so I found myself surprised at some of what I found.

Most story information, or lore, is found in virtual Grimoire cards that are unlocked, but not readable, as the game progresses. If you want to know what’s on the card, you must read it online. Most, if not all, of these cards’ texts are online so you don’t have to unlock them in-game to read them (but as many fans reasonably complain, who wants to take all the time to go somewhere else and read them?).

These Grimoire cards, in-game dialogue, and other sources were used to construct the story information here, but a note on “lore” language and quality–not much of it is written in a straight-forward kind-of way. Instead, there is poetic and mystery religion sort of texts, official reports, cryptic messages, and broken up conversations. The wide variety of information styles, considered alongside the absence of dates and characterizations, make deciphering the story difficult and very time consuming. The excuse for the dearth of relevant information is that humanity lost it between the Collapse and the present time. However, humans are flying around in little space ships at warp drive, tiny flying robots called Ghosts in-game can reflesh humans and materialize and dematerialize things, Ghosts can access centuries old data, etc. . . . never mind, Bungie, never mind.

A bit about the game itself before getting to the story. Destiny is a shooter, not an RPG or adventure game, so shooting enemies as well as other players is what this game is about. And showing off rare gear—especially, it’s about showing off. But, why does everything in the game attack you? Why does no one ever try to dialogue with you? Why is it that everyone on “your side” is so mum about the history and meaning of it all? It doesn’t much matter, apparently, as long as you’re a good soldier who is willing to get his or her own gear. When it comes down to it, the in-game story seems to be nothing more than a loose construct to name enemies; but, considering the religio-philosophical web content and that at least one more sequel is coming out, maybe it’s worth trying to figure out the Destiny universe. “The Story of Things: The Basic Story” is followed by “The Story of Ideas: The Philosophical and Religious Underpinnings of Destiny’s Lore.”

This is the second part of New Testament Views of Women: 1 Timothy 2:11-15. Due to the length of this study, I decided to divide it up. Please see Part 1 here [forthcoming] as they relate to each other.

1 Timothy 2:13-15

For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women [or she] will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

There is so much seemingly wrong with this passage in relation to basic Christian doctrine and belief that it seems hard to take it seriously. If the epistle is authentic—which not all early church leaders believed was the case–Paul surely wrote it for a specific local situation and/or a particular false teaching. Verses 13 and 14 read: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.” There are at least two implications here, so let’s go through them in detail.

Eve was Deceived: Why?

The first implication is that since Adam was formed before Eve, he was less easily deceived and that Eve is the only one who sinned in The Fall. The seeming meaning that Eve is the only one who sinned in The Fall flagrantly goes against New Testament teachings, even many of Paul’s other writings. Adam also sinned, and, in fact all humans sin and have sinned; Paul himself wrote of Jesus being the new Adam who came to redeem all from the sin that came through the first Adam (Romans 5:11-19; 1 Corinthians 15:22, 45). Was Paul saying here that because Eve was created after Adam she was somehow less of a person? That sounds simply wrong (grossly wrong, actually), but some basically interpret it that way, holding to an “order of creation” concept (see MacDonald 1995 for an example).

However, when looking at God’s order of creation, the lesser came first and progressed, one could say, until the creation of Man. All of Mankind is the highest earthly creation of God: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). So, there is no other order: all of mankind (male and female) was created last. If one wants to invoke the order of creation to establish a hierarchy between man and woman, then one can’t back peddle; woman would come out on top since Eve was made after Adam (Genesis 2:20b-22), the last being hand made by God in the ever progressive chain of creation.

The words used to translate “helper” and “suitable for” constitute another strike against the order of creation concept. The NIV renders Genesis 2: 18: The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” In English, “helper” is like “assistant” and is therefore a very inadequate translation of the word actually used. The same word for “helper” here is used 16 other times in the Old Testament and it always refers to God; is God your assistant? The word is used by God for Himself in contexts meaning “one who saves, upholds and sustains” (Kaiser et al. p 667). “Suitable for” sounds generic, a sad and almost insulting expression (“she’s better than one of the cows walking around, at least”) that should be more like a “perfect match for,” I would think. As Kaiser et al. puts it (p 667): “The word translated ‘suitable for’ literally means ‘in front of,’ signifying one who stands ‘face to face’ with another, qualitatively the same, his essential equal, and therefore his ‘correspondent’.”

As is discussed in the 1Timothy 2:11-12 section as well, Paul meant that Eve was deceived because she was less aware than Adam was of God’s command, not because she was less bright than Adam. Adam had been instructed by God, but Eve was instructed by Adam. What Paul said in verse 11 is that women must be educated–a radical notion for that time; they need direct instruction so as not to be deceived.

The wording as translated is still misleading, though, since it appears to convey that only Eve transgressed. But everyone understood that Adam sinned purposefully and not through deception, so it “went without saying.” This implied understanding is important to our own understanding of the next verse. There was a Gnostic teaching that claimed that Eve was created first, and not Adam. This, coupled with other pagan beliefs about female spiritual superiority, no doubt was creating a slew of problems at the Ephesian church. So Paul reiterates Genesis, that Adam was created first, to counter the false Gnostic and pagan teachings (Cowles 1993). Keep this in mind as we analyze the last verse.

Saved through Childbearing?! Whose Childbearing?

Verse 15 reads, “But women [or she] will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” How does one explain this seemingly heretical verse? People, both men and women, are saved by their faith in Jesus Christ as their savior, not through any work (especially childbirth, which is a natural female function). In answering the NT question “what works does God require?” Jesus proclaimed, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:28-29). Belief and faith save a woman, just as they do a man, not a procreative work. There are at least two explanations for the first part of this odd verse, and both may be applicable.

One is that “childbearing” is not a verb here, an action of women for salvation, but a noun as in “the childbearing” of a single woman. In this case, the singular “she” would be used instead of the plural “women.” This “childbearing” refers to Mary accepting God’s will in bringing Christ into the world. She was obedient—a counter and remedy to Eve’s actions. This parallels the Adam and Christ as second Adam concept. Adam’s sin was greater, since it came from willful disobedience (not from deception), and it required no lesser remedy than self-sacrifice from God. But Mary’s obedience in bringing God’s remedy into the world countered Eve’s disobedience (Cowles 1993; Cunningham and Hamilton 2000).

Another explanation falls in line with the general subject matter of the epistle, relating to the false teachings wracking the Ephesian church. Among other things, false teachers were claiming that marriage was to be avoided (1 Timothy 4:3) for salvation and holiness. Paul may have been countering this false teaching by saying that no, getting married and having children leads to salvation, too (Kaiser et al. 1996).

Scriptural, Historical, and Cultural Contexts, along with Humility, Make all the Difference

Without these explanations that take into account the historical, cultural, and even scriptural contexts, Paul’s writing here could easily imply false and demeaning things about women. Many people have taken Paul’s words, as translated and without 2,000 year old contexts, at isolated face value and have demeaned half of God’s acmic creation in the process. In a radical departure from the times, Paul desired that women should be educated so that they would not be deceived. He also countered false teachings that claimed that women, being made before Adam, were superior, and that remaining single was spiritually better than becoming married. Paul’s writing does not teach that childless women would not be saved—a very absurd, unchristian notion. Women, just as men, are to learn and live in humility, and marry if they are not called to a celibate life.

Christianity is a dirty word. Trying to find the Christian history of things, or the Christian basis of science, or information on Christian scientists, philosophers, etc., seems to be getting harder by the day. Christianity is being erased from history, and you’d be hard-pressed to find entertainment industry professionals who discuss their faith openly. There are some who do, like Denzel Washington, Sean Astin, Patricia Heaton, and John Rhys-Davies, and it was easier to find out about their faith than any direct information about the religious aspects of the BBC TV show Broadchurch. Considering that Broadchurch is chock full of things Christian, this lack of discussion still seems surprising.

Despite the (seeming) decline of Christianity in the United Kingdom,[1] or perhaps because of it, the 8-part murder mystery contains more on the Christian faith than many people no doubt experience in a year. Hearing actors quote bible passages was happily shocking. These days, when show business types are generally afraid to mention their faith, how did this show even get made? In an interview (Ng 2013) with one of the main actors, Arthur Darvill, he responded to a question with what may be a partial explanation:

It was written because [Chris] wanted to write it and he wrote it the way that he wanted to write it. It’s a real testament to people having ideas and people not interfering with those ideas. You can see it hasn’t been meddled with by people who are pulling purse strings, if that makes sense. I think a lot of TV you see is made in a way that’s quite cynical because it’s made to make money or made to be a hit, and this wasn’t.

There’s absolutely no reason to think Darvill was referring to the murder mystery part of the story, since that is a very ordinary, accepted, and desirable show genre. But besides Christianity, there are other meaningful issues, or themes, in Broadchurch that aren’t obviously discussed in mainstream media either. You’d think that the murder mystery was the only aspect of the 8-week long story, but my impression is that the story (which was interesting but not great)[2] was written solely to express these themes: Christianity; the supernatural; male affection vs. male perversion; grief; and, the question of how or why people closest to criminals don’t know about the criminal activity. Below is commentary on themes and subthemes, excepting that on grieving (the family slug shows up near the bottom, in “How could you now know?”).

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. James 3:9

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. James 1:22

Why this Post

Far more often than is good for me, I see people cursing other people on the internet. I see this most often on Twitter, but it happens everywhere (I just happen to be on Twitter . . . too much). Most disturbing, of course, are the instances of this that come from those who claim to be Christian. Now, I’m not referring to heat-of-the-moment squabbling. I’m referring to the pre-meditated and consistent cursing of people “other” than themselves, like conservatives calling liberals “libtards,” liberals calling conservatives “homophobes,” and liberals (mostly, from what I have seen so far) saying moderates are stupid and/or smug (apparently for rejecting them).

People have always had a problem with the “us vs them” mentality, so I don’t know if it’s worse now in the U.S. than before (it seems so), but, followers of Christ ought not to be in this worldly way. We are to reach people for Christ’s kingdom, not push them away. With these thoughts in mind, I have read conservatives curse people who have a concern for others, concerns and desires that God Himself commands us to share. There are liberals who also curse conservatives for being pro-life and anti-gay, and no doubt this is why some conservatives can’t see anything good coming from the liberals. Part of it, though, is that some conservatives either don’t know the biblical teachings regarding the poor and wealth, or they choose to ignore them. This only serves to add fuel to the anti-Christian fire.

In fairness, however, “What homophobe said that?” will be posted as a separate article (due to length). Many liberals either ignore God’s teaching on physical love and marriage, or else try to explain it away (even some liberal Christians do this). However, God’s attitude toward homosexuality from the old to the new testaments didn’t change, and passages about its sinfulness are not taken out of context, despite what critics say. That article will include passages supporting the “pro-life” stance as well.

Here are “140 characters or less” quotes, but more often paraphrases (those entries with no quotation marks), of biblical passages along with the actual passage reference and who uttered them. Feel free to use them on Twitter or elsewhere, but it would be nice if you shared my article url.

Not all of my video game articles will be at Christian Entertainment Reviews, but when they are, I still want you to know about them here. Over Christmas break my son and I decided to get the new episodic video game series from Telltale Games, Tales from the Borderlands. Here’s my review of it – thanks for reading!

Beautiful, and therefore raider-free, town image from Tales from the Borderlands.

Most Christians may not be all that familiar with the Borderlands series of games, considering that they’re quite violent and gory. I’m not here to review or warn you away from the regular Borderlands video games, but I can tell you about the first episode of the new interactive story series, Tales from the Borderlands. This first installment of the five-part series came out on November 25, 2014, with the next episode (“Atlas Mugged”) planned for release during the last week of January 2015.

. . . Episodic games are sort-of like a cross between reading a book or watching a show and playing a role playing game (RPG). The player is given choices in dialogue as the story moves along, and these choices define which branch of the storyline tree the player continues to move along. The storyline tree makes for built-in replayabliity.

I was recently asked to contribute at Christian Entertainment Reviews, and I gratefully accepted. Below is the beginning of my first post there with a link to continue reading. Thanks for checking it out! You might find other reviews to tickle your fancy there too.

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What’s the Best Shooter Ever? Garden Warfare (PvZ)

Ok, so saying that the childish-looking Plants vs Zombies game, Garden Warfare, is the “best shooter ever” might be a bit subjective, but I’m not the only one adult with that line of thinking. Sprinkled all over the internet are almost apologetic expressions of this same sentiment from experienced gamers–that is, by older teens or adults. But Game reviewers are less shy in praising Garden Warfare:

Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare’s bright colors, cartoon graphics and humorous approach are the antithesis of most . . . shooters. But don’t be fooled. It’s as good as any out there – and very likely an awful lot more fun. (Jaz Rignall at USGamer.net)

Garden Warfare is more deliberate, and involves more strategy than you would think, considering its cartoon exterior. Digging into the different characters and the different special abilities for each, there’s a surprising amount of depth to the gameplay.

What exactly is Garden Warfare (PvZ)?

Alien Flower, available from Legends of the Lawn downloadable content (free).

Garden Warfare, rated“E” (everyone), is a third-person shooter—meaning that you see the back of your character as you blast away (a possible down-side being that the right-of-center site makes aiming less intuitive). It’s populated by cute, weird, and . . . [continue reading]

Most people nowadays are satisfied with the games that come out each year. They look pretty, aren’t too difficult (most of them anyways), and normally don’t take up too much of your time to play and beat. However, most modern games lack a certain depth and personality that some of the older games have. While many people would be quick to point out that older games are outdated, time consuming, and not user friendly, there are some old games that still have a strong (and growing!) following. One such role playing game would be The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. For those looking for a game without sex, gore, and with very little swearing, Morrowind might be for you.

Morrowind was the third installment in The Elder Scrolls series of games (by Bethesda), a predecessor to the much-loved Skyrim (2011), as well as Oblivion (2006/2007), games. It came out for PC in 2002; the Game of the year edition, which included all the expansions, came out the next year. It’s been more than ten years since its launch and in game years, that’s a long time—sort-of like “dog years” to today’s generation. However, Morrowind is a game that is still played widely today, and in my opinion it deserves all the attention it’s been getting.

The 1885 short story, What Men Live By by Leo Tolstoy (Russian, 1828-1910), in times past was much more well-known and even acted out as Christmas-time plays. I have a wonderfully illustrated little hard cover copy from 1954, published by the Peter Pauper Press (PPP), but the entire text can be read online at The Literature Network (What Men Live By). Below, I provide a synopsis of the story with some Christian and biblical commentary, although Tolstoy himself prefaced it himself with passages from 1 John (here are two of the six):

“We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love
the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death.” 3:14

“Whoso hath the world’s goods, and beholdeth his brother in need,
and shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the love of God
abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither
with the tongue; but in deed and truth.” 3:17-18

Despite the amazing beauty of Destiny’s environments, it’s a lousy game (as least for the cost).

Based on the beta, we pre-purchased Destiny with the two DLCs, or expansions, but everyone in our family is very disappointed with Destiny and Bungie, the maker of the game. During the pre-purchase phase, as far as I am aware, Bungie never let on that to fully play the game players would have to assemble their own teams of six (and have microphones, which isn’t too surprising for an MMO). Bungie has no customer service to speak of, either, so all in all, buying Destiny was a real waste of money. Their marketing during the pre-purchase phase was deceptive, with a few players STILL referring to the game as an RPG, which at this point it very clearly is not.

Going back to the teams issue (the only way to be able to play the whole game): in order to assemble your own team of six you need to have six same-console friends with the game (who have microphones) who are able to do a big raid (the “Vault of Glass”) all at the same time. This was annoying enough as part of the original game, as purchased, but now – with the first expansion, The Dark Below – Bungie did the same thing. There is a second such raid, called “Crota’s End,” that one apparently has to do in order to finish the DLC quest line (and there is no matchmaking).

Christmas Card (by V Priest)

Christian Things and Things Seen Through Christian Eyes

"I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." C.S. Lewis
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"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (James 1:27).
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Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. 2 Kings 6:17

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